Growing Brazilian Rosewood trees from seed or not

[Truckjohn]

I don't live in brazil.... I have never been. I live in the USA... I have no practical way to do any due dilligence... How can I know if they are scamming me or lying to me.... Planting corn and telling me its Brazilian.. (Hat trick 2nd hand lions)

That's the simplest reason I have...

[printer2]

The problem with offering money for the seeds means that the seeds are being removed rather than them producing trees in their natural habitat. On the flip side you would be protecting the species but you would think paying off some government officials and having 'legally' sourced seeds would be much more advantageous rather than developing a black market source of seeds and smuggling them out.

[Jabberwocky]

https://www.theguardian.com/environm.../sep/26/brazil

[Otterhound]

Growing trees for a profit . How terrible . Please pass me that apple , orange , peach , apricot , pear ......
The simple truth is that most seeds fail in the natural environment . Collecting seeds once and planting them elsewhere is wise . The trees that those seeds yield will go on to produce more seeds .
BRW is grown in places other than Brazil already .
It is in the financial interest of Brazil to limit propagation of this species elsewhere and keeping them as the source for product going forward .

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

What did they do with the seeds? Destroy them once the case was concluded?

Read the OP.

[AndrewG]

The issues here are illegality and keeping Dalbergia nigra in its natural habitat, Brazil.
If you allow indiscriminate seed robbing then eventually there will be no indigenous seeds. This is no different from the morons who collect rare birds eggs by robbing nests. 'But I only took one, and there were four left'. That's what the next idiot will say until they all go...
Dalbergia nigra should be left to grow where it does so endemically, not on some Pacific island.

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Otterhound

Growing trees for a profit . How terrible . Please pass me that apple , orange , peach , apricot , pear ......
The simple truth is that most seeds fail in the natural environment . Collecting seeds once and planting them elsewhere is wise . The trees that those seeds yield will go on to produce more seeds .
BRW is grown in places other than Brazil already .
It is in the financial interest of Brazil to limit propagation of this species elsewhere and keeping them as the source for product going forward .

No. Dalbergia nigra is native to specific geographical regions of Brazil. This nonsense about 'financial interest' might have some shred of validity if the government of Brazil were profiting from the sale of Dalbergia. It does not, and it is strictly protected in that country, by the government, as far as is possible. The only profiteers are those involved in poaching.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalber...d_distribution

[Otterhound]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

The issues here are illegality and keeping Dalbergia nigra in its natural habitat, Brazil.
If you allow indiscriminate seed robbing then eventually there will be no indigenous seeds. This is no different from the morons who collect rare birds eggs by robbing nests. 'But I only took one, and there were four left'. That's what the next idiot will say until they all go...
Dalbergia nigra should be left to grow where it does so endemically, not on some Pacific island.

Point being that it can grow in both places .
There are examples of this species currently growing in Europe and other places .
Proper farming of this species will help save it .
Look at EIR .
Every new tree , regardless of where it is growing , becomes a new source for more . This will place less pressure on the original source and help to assure it of remaining there .
You are in the UK .
Plane tree is not native . Remove them all . In fact , it is a hybrid of 2 separate species . One from North America and the other from Asia . While we are at it , I guess that we should destroy all non native apple trees in North America and European grapes and European Honey Bees .
Please honestly consider what you are saying .
Human encroachment may eliminate BRW in Brazil , which would be a terrible thing , but having trees elsewhere will help keep it from going extinct .
Sometimes , we must do what we can when we cannot do as we like .
There should be some legal way to accomplish this .
Rant over .

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Otterhound

Point being that it can grow in both places .
There are examples of this species currently growing in Europe and other places .
Proper farming of this species will help save it .
Look at EIR .
Every new tree , regardless of where it is growing , becomes a new source for more . This will place less pressure on the original source and help to assure it of remaining there .
You are in the UK .
Plane tree is not native . Remove them all . In fact , it is a hybrid of 2 separate species . One from North America and the other from Asia . While we are at it , I guess that we should destroy all non native apple trees in North America and European grapes and European Honey Bees .
Please honestly consider what you are saying .
Human encroachment may eliminate BRW in Brazil , which would be a terrible thing , but having trees elsewhere will help keep it from going extinct .
Sometimes , we must do what we can when we cannot do as we like .
There should be some legal way to accomplish this .
Rant over .

Rubbish. None of your examples are remotely endangered. Dalbergia nigra grows where it does because unique climatic conditions for the species allow it to thrive there. If you permit indiscriminate growth and the inevitable failure of seedlings grown where they are not indigenous, what is the point of CITES?
We guitarists can live quite happily without Dalbergia nigra, and the world won't stop turning because you can't get a guitar made from it.

[Silurian]

I don't believe that transplanting endangered species around the globe is really the answer. What happens to native flora and fauna when we do this? Do they in turn become endangered?

It's not just about preserving a single species, but preserving the entire ecosystem in which it grows. Of course we do grow a huge variety of products that are not native to their country of origin. Most of them food products, but then people need to eat.

Nobody 'needs' Brazilian Rosewood, Just leave it alone and it will recover.

[The Bard Rocks]

This has been an intriguing post - so many facets to it and ethical questions. My feet are on both sides. Yes what the guy did was unquestionably wrong, but I wish it could have been done legally. Seeds planted in Brazil for instance. I have read that the species does not flourish in plantations, that it needs to be among other trees, here and there. And of course, it is very slow-growing. A BRW plantation, if you could get one started, would be a study in an investment in the far future. But it may be that it would have destined to failure from the start.

[fazool]

Originally Posted by superfluidity

This was a bad idea from the start, I think greed may have been the motivation, who knows.

And a stupid plan anyway.

He knows he can't distribute rosewood, to the point that he even knew the seeds were contraband. So how did he expect to sell/transport the lumber?

Not to mention, the trees would not be mature enough in his lifetime I suspect.

[Otterhound]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

Rubbish. None of your examples are remotely endangered. Dalbergia nigra grows where it does because unique climatic conditions for the species allow it to thrive there. If you permit indiscriminate growth and the inevitable failure of seedlings grown where they are not indigenous, what is the point of CITES?
We guitarists can live quite happily without Dalbergia nigra, and the world won't stop turning because you can't get a guitar made from it.

Yes , it can and does grow elsewhere .
You have struck something that I believe we can agree on .
Here in North America , we have some fabulous luthery woods . There is no need for BRW , only a desire that has been fed to the public for 100+ years . The same thing can be said about Mahogany .
With that said , the nations that are not involved in CITIES are the problem . As long as there is a market , someone will do what it takes to meet that need .
I am looking for solutions , not pointing fingers of blame or fault and possible farming needs to be considered .
You mention unique climatic conditions . What are they ?

[Gasworker]

Maybe the guy is an expert at introducing new species into environments where they are foreign but it can have devastating consequences. The American Chestnut, gone due to an Asian pathogen introduced unintentionally. Elm trees, gone, Ash trees, soon to be gone. Others, Lion Fish Salmon in the Great Lakes Zebra Muscles.
Point is even if he was trying to save BR there might be unintended consequences.

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Gasworker

Maybe the guy is an expert at introducing new species into environments where they are foreign but it can have devastating consequences. The American Chestnut, gone due to an Asian pathogen introduced unintentionally. Elm trees, gone, Ash trees, soon to be gone. Others, Lion Fish Salmon in the Great Lakes Zebra Muscles.
Point is even if was trying to save BR there might be unintended consequences.

Yes, in Britain the red squirrel was once common everywhere, but the introduction in the 1870s of the bigger and more aggressive North American grey squirrel has now restricted its breeding range to parts of Scotland and the far north of England where it is rare.